“It should have been the greatest week of my life, but instead I hit an all-time low,” he writes. Allman’s marriage to Cher and hobnobbing with Jimmy Carter are contrasted with his worsening drug problems and creative decay within the group.Any one of Gregg Allman’s stories about his life could lure a reader into his new memoir, but the 64-year-old Allman begins My Cross to Bear with his biggest moment of shame, the induction of the Allman Brothers Band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Ironically, the band found its commercial success after Duane’s death. He devotes a chapter to the 1971 death of his 24-year-old brother in a motorcycle accident, both detailing a sorrow that haunted him for years and setting up the precipitous falls he and his band would suffer.

The journey spawns memorable tales about how Allman was able to finally piece together his first song - “Melissa’’ - in a most improbable manner, and how he composed “Whipping Post” one night, scratching out lyrics with burned matches on an ironing board cover.Īllman captures the chaos surrounding the March 26, 1969, birth of the Allman Brothers Band with anecdotes full of wild characters named Twiggs, Red Dog, and the like. Needing to build a band and make records, the Allmans chased their dreams from Florida to Georgia to California. Allman paints Duane - only 18 months older than he - as far more brazen and certain about their musical pursuits.īy the mid-1960s, the brothers were playing and writing music that broke from the conventions of their blues and rock influences, creating signature material still performed today. The relationship between the brothers drives the first half of the book. When the bonds are weakened or broken, Allman inevitably goes into tailspins. When the bonds are strong, great things happen, most notably in the music. Stories about his brother Duane the band members that became the brotherhood his many wives (with extra attention given to de-tabloidizing his marriage to Cher) and all of the other colorful characters that shaped Allman’s life are basically about searching for harmony - and not just the musical kind. Instead, Allman avoids glamorizing or sanitizing to produce a rich, three-dimensional representation of a person with deep musical talent and fragile emotions.Īs much as his book is about music, Allman essentially writes about the power of relationships. Chronicling innumerable trips to rehab, six marriages, and two dissolutions of the Allman Brothers Band, “My Cross to Bear” could easily have been stock rock-lit caricature. “My Cross to Bear” has a comprehensive sweep, delving into Allman’s childhood in military school and later in Florida with his widowed mother, his professional career inside and out of the Allman Brothers Band, and personal setbacks spurred by years of drug and alcohol abuse.

My Cross to Bear by Gregg Allman